SAN BERNARDINO (CA)
San Bernardino Sun
May 14, 2019
By Joe Nelson and Scott Schwebke
Six Catholic dioceses in California, including those in San Bernardino, Orange, and Los Angeles counties, have formed a compensation program for victims of clergy sexual abuse that allows them to settle claims privately, outside the courts, the California Catholic Conference announced Tuesday.
The voluntary program will be available to any person who has been sexually abused as a minor by priests from the dioceses of San Bernardino, Orange, Los Angeles, Fresno, Sacramento and San Diego.
As an alternative to litigation, victim-survivors can choose to meet with two mediators, in private and without an attorney if preferred, to potentially settle their claims. The mediators, Kenneth Feinberg and Camille Biros, will review the claims and determine who should be compensated and the amount offered.
Settlements will occur within 90 days and be determined by the mediators, with no church interference, according to the California Catholic Conference, which is the public policy arm of the Catholic Church in the state.
Feinberg and Biros are mediators for similar victim compensation programs involving Catholic dioceses in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey and Colorado. The two attorneys also have represented the families of victims of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, considered to be one of the largest petroleum spills ever.
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